Date: 25 Jan 2005
From: Jerome Vanderberg
<>
Via: ProMED-mail<>
This is to inform all of his friends and admirers that
Dr. William Trager, one of the prime leaders in
malariology, died at home last Saturday night.
He had had mild influenza last week but began feeling
worse Saturday night, then suffered a heart attack 2
hours later.
Dr. Trager was about 95. He remained active, going to
his office at the Rockefeller University 3 days a
week. Several colleagues reported having
had scientific discussions with him over the last few
months, so he was going strong until the very end --
exactly as he would have liked and as we
all might have expected of him. Bill Trager was a
talented, inspired, inspiring, insightful and honest
scientist, and was one of the most decent
human beings that I ever had the privilege of knowing.
He will be missed.
--
Professor
Trager received the Prince Mahidol Award in 1994
(named in honor of the Thai Prince). The award
statement included the following:
<http://kanchanapisek.or.th/pmaf/awardees/1994.en>
"Professor William Trager, a protozoologist and an
authority on tropical medicine and insect physiology,
is a leader in the fight against malaria,
the most prevalent disease in the world today. In
1976, he and a colleague described a practical method
for the continuous cultivation of _Plasmodium
falciparum_, the most highly pathogenic human malaria
parasite. Adopted by laboratories around the world,
this method has given rise to a spectrum of
physiological, biochemical, immunological, and genetic
studies that were previously impossible or
prohibitively difficult, opening the way for
scientists working to develop an effective malaria
vaccine. _P. falciparum_ cultures have also advanced
work on malarial drug resistance and efforts to
screen for new types of antimalarial compounds.
Dr. Trager's malaria reseach began 60 years ago, when
he provided the first direct evidence of the
significance of nutritional factors in the host's
susceptibility to malaria. Since then, he has shown
that intracellular parasites lack certain biosynthetic
pathways and depend on their host cells
for cofactors essential to their own metabolism. His
laboratory provided the 1st demonstration of the
fine-structural relationship between malaria
parasites and their host red cells. They also
elucidated the cellular and physiological basis for
the relative resistance to malaria conferred by the
sickle haemoglobin gene. Recently, they achieved
axenic cultivation of _P. falciparum_, obtaining
extracellular development of the complete
erythrocytic cycle, work that may permit new research
on the nature of the parasite's dependence on its
host. Methods developed for extracellular
cultivation of _P. falciparum_ may also be applicable
to other parasites that have resisted cultivation,
including other human malaria parasites.
Other contributions include early studies on the
nutritional needs of the larvae of _Aedes aegypti_,
the yellow fever vector; demonstration of the
mechanism of acquired immunity to ticks; and
development of cultivation methods for a principal
trypanosomal parasite of cattle.
Professor William Trager graduated with a B.S. from
Rutgers University and received a Ph.D. from Harvard
University. He spent his entire professional
career at the Rockefeller University, where he became
a Professor Emeritus in 1980 and remains active as
head of the laboratory of parasitology. "
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